


Lost and Found

by anguis_1



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M, Unrepentant Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-05
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 12:31:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anguis_1/pseuds/anguis_1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan doesn't always think logically where Garcia is concerned.<br/>(bringthehappy prompt: turquoise)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found

Penelope Garcia understood, intellectually, that guys like Derek Morgan fooled around. But it was one thing to have a vague theory occupying that deliberately fuzzy portion of her brain and quite another to have soft, silky proof of it slip out of his pocket and drape itself across her sandal.

He had left her office with a "Later, Gorgeous!" and a salacious wink. A minute later, when her grin began to purse into a moue of concentration and her pulse veered back towards its normal rate, she noticed a slight catch as she wiggled her toes in time with a fragment of a song stuck in her head. She glanced down at her foot in irritation. Snagged on her Carnal Carmine toenails was a scrap of turquoise satin that most certainly had not been there before Derek's visit.

When she retrieved the offending bit of fabric and smoothed it out on her lap to see what it was, she couldn't believe it. He'd been flirting with her with another woman's panties crumpled in his pocket.

If it were any other guy, she'd have been fabricating him a criminal record as fast as she could type. This was Morgan, though, and her fingers were leaden and her chest hollow, and if she didn't distract herself _right_ _now_ by isolating audio from a particularly gruesome cell phone video, she'd be good for nothing the rest of the day.

*****

"Hey, Reid, you haven't seen anything laying around here that might be . . . out of the ordinary, have you?"

"You mean, besides the twenty-seven red golf balls and thirty-nine neon yellow shuttlecocks from our current case, the bouquet of daisies on Prentiss' desk that's wreaking havoc with my allergies, and a pile of papers that includes half of your case report backlog that mysteriously appeared on my desk this morning? Nope, nothing else."

Morgan swore softly. "Nothing blue?"

"Is this a rhetorical question, or are you doubting my observation and memory skills?"

"I had, uh, something in my pocket I had gotten for Garcia, but then I decided not to give it to her and now it's missing."

"Something?" Reid's eyebrow quirked upward.

He considered lying, except that then Reid wouldn't be able to help him search. "A thong."

Reid swallowed convulsively, then peered around furtively as though mere auditory exposure to the word had branded him a pervert by association. It would have amused Morgan if his situation didn't seem so dire.

"I bought it on a whim--it was this shade of greenish-blue that would set off her hair and complexion perfectly--but reality caught up with my fantasy before I even got home. I mean, she'd think I was the biggest creep ever. Hell, we profile guys who do things like that! But, they had a no-return policy on underwear, so what could I do?"

Recovering his composure, Reid started ticking off options on his fingers. "Let's see. You could have given it to Goodwill, sold it on eBay, thrown it out, tucked it in the back of your sock drawer . . . . Putting it in your pocket and bringing it to work doesn't register as even a vaguely logical idea."

Morgan groaned and muttered, "Remind me not to look for sympathy from you again."

*****

"My time's worth its weight in precious metals and chocolate, and I bill accordingly. What's your query?" Garcia's tap-tap-tapping fingers didn't break their stride as she called out to the person who'd just entered her office.

"Sweetheart, I can't afford your time with what they pay me here, but I was hoping you could spare a few moments for a poor man, anyway."

"Oh." She slowly swiveled her chair around to face him, her expression grim. "Look, Morgan, what you get up to in your own time is none of my business." Her consonants were clipped and brittle. "But I'd appreciate it if you would leave your trophies at home."

As Morgan listened, the knot in his stomach swelled to Gordian proportions. Garcia had pulled the missing undergarment out of a drawer and was holding it up between two glistening red fingernails, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"Goddess, I did something stupid."

"Indeed."

"But it wasn't what you're thinking. I'd _never_ do that. I . . . ." His courage, which had never deserted him before, was beginning to inch towards the door, so he plunged on before he lost it entirely. "I bought it for you, but then I realized that was kind of creepy, and I don't want you to think that I'm a perv, so I decided not to give it to you, but I guess I already associated it with you, so I've been carrying it around in my pocket as a . . . a sort of token of you." As his flurry of words ran out, he dropped his face into his hands.

Garcia looked at the thong with renewed interest. It was near her size--a bit small, but definitely workable. And the color did look lovely against her skin. Maybe Morgan wasn't so unobservant when it came to her, after all.

"You silly, silly man," she purred, advancing on him with a predatory gleam in her eye. "If you want a pair of my knickers, all you have to do is ask." Confused, he allowed her to turn him around to face the closed door. "Just wait a moment, Hot Stuff, and I'll see if we can negotiate a trade."

A minute later, she pressed a still-warm handful of red lace into his palm and whispered, "Don't you dare lose these."


End file.
